Shaun Rein on China's resolve in the trade war with the U.S.

In the United States, a lot of people think that China's nervous about the trade war and is going to kneel down and fold and give in to all of Trump's demands.  That's just not going to happen.  I want to remind my fellow Americans of one word, and that's the R-word: "resolve."  Right now Xi Jinping and the Chinese people are coalescing together.  They're not scared about the United States.  They're going to push back really hard.

You have to remember two points.  First is China underwent a century of humiliation at the American and European colonial powers when they forced China to open up their borders to sell opium and to pay huge taxes to the Western colonial powers.  Because of this, China suffered for a hundred years before the rise of the CPC in 1949.  So Xi Jinping and the Chinese people are resolved not to give in a second time to imperial powers.  They're going to push back a lot harder than most Americans think.

The second this is the Chinese can eat bitter a lot more than Americans.  You have to think, even Xi Jinping himself lived in a cave for many, many years during the Cultural Revolution.  He knows what it's like to endure hardship.

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What Trump is doing now, threatening our allies, threatening our adversaries, is just doing damage to the United States.  For instance, China is no longer buying American beef; they're buying beef from Australian.  China is no longer buying oil from the United States; they're now buying oil from Canada.  China is no longer buying American soybeans; they're now buying soybeans from Brazil.  China is no longer buying Boeing airplanes.  Xiamen Airlines refused to accept a Boeing airplane that had just arrived in China.  They're now buying Airbuses from France or they're expanding COMAC [Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China], the Chinese indigenous homegrown domestic airplane brand which they just signed a deal to sell several COMACs to Malaysia.

So what's happening is the entire world's [trading] system is shifting.  China can basically buy everything that America sells, except for semiconductors, from other countries.  The United States can only buy antibiotics, refined rare earth, iPhones, computers from China.  And that's why China right now has the upper hand in the trade war.

~ Shaun Rein, "'Made in USA:' A Wishful Scheme Dressed Up As Policy," 0:55 and 8:40 mark, Thinkers Forum, April 23, 2025